Economists' predictions often disagree, but there's one thing they have in common: They're pretty much all wrong.

"Planning for disruption" can seem like a contradiction in terms, but there are measures that food companies can take to protect themselves from the inevitable crises that threaten to derail their supply chains, however unpredictable they might be, says Brian Benjamin, senior director of strategic accounts with Havi Global Solutions.

Retailers are prioritizing immediate investments in customer-facing tactics such as price, marketing and customer service over strategic infrastructure, according to research released from eBay Enterprise.

Epicor Software Corp. has made generally available version 8.7.9 of Epicor Eclipse, its enterprise resource planning (ERP) software for wholesale distribution.

Orchestro Inc., a vendor of demand-analytics software, has released its Tango Cues platform.

The Federal Trade Commission has updated a longstanding rule governing mail and phone-based retailers to explicitly include e-commerce vendors as well, meaning that online retailers now must abide by a 30-day shipping requirement or refund customers' payments if they can't.